A COALWAY pensioner is furious after vandals trashed his garden three times, stealing garden ornaments and causing hundreds of pounds worth of damage.

Terry Griffiths heard noises in his garden on Wednesday evening at around 11.30pm and saw a group of youths in his garden.

"I got up and went to the window and there were two boys and two girls out there, about 14 or 15," he said.

"They pulled everything all over the garden, there were muddy footprints all over the flower beds and one of the girls was pushing one of my concrete wheelbarrows."

A pair of wheerlbarrow ornaments have been stolen and statuettes of a boy and a girl carrying a lamb have been damaged.

On Friday night or early Saturday morning an ornamental wooden wishing well was removed from his garden. His car has also been vandalised.

Mr Griffiths spends a lot of time tending his garden and says he thinks vandalism has increased in Coalway in recent years.

He said a neighbour collected an entire black bag full of rubbish from the roads every week, before he moved out of the area.

Mr Griffiths says he is on good terms with his neighbours, who all look out for each other, and he keeps a jar of sweets to offer to visitors.

"I'm getting fed up of life," he said. "I called the police and told them what I'd seen and they drove around the area trying to catch them.

"I'm not doing my gardening on my knees for hours every day for some youngster to come and spoil it all! I'm 73 years old and I don't want trouble."

Mr Griffiths is appealing for anyone else who has had something stolen from their garden to come forward. He is installing security cameras to catch intruders in his garden.

Anyone who witnessed these incidents, or who has any information about them, is asked to contact Gloucestershire Constabulary on 0845 090 1234 quoting incident 170 of March 21.